Hangman's Game (36 page)

“Sounds like this guy really opened up to you,” I say.

“I think it's the first time in ages he's seen a woman wearing makeup.”

“You are a wonder,” I say. “We should get out of here.”

“Where are we going—to Luke's father's house?”

I don't answer. I don't know.

“Or do you mean we're going back to Philadelphia?” Jessica asks, leaning back in her chair. Her body language suggests she is not quite ready for this to end.

Though now that Jessica has mentioned going home, the thought is inviting. I could share what I've learned with Jai's legal team, and let them take it from here. We are getting close to something here in Berry, and it isn't like me to leave a job partway done. But maybe I should try quitting and see what it feels like.

My phone tells me it's 10:09. Just past my old high school curfew.

“Let's go to one of those hotels by the Interstate,” I say. We may end up going home tomorrow morning, but I want to see how I feel when I wake up. More than once I have lost motivation at night only to find it afresh the next morning.

“What are these, anyway?” Jessica asks, taking the cookie from my hand.

“A bad idea,” I say. “Let's go.”

Jessica picks the peanut butter and jelly sandwich off the plate and takes a bite as we walk to the car. The sound of the drumbeat fades enough for me to notice a faint but persistent chorus of crickets from the countryside. I stand by my car for a few seconds—the drum and the crickets seem to be making music with each other in a cheeky call and response—but then MC Lovelife ups the tempo and the moment is over. I get in the car and Jessica follows.

“At some point,” I say to Jessica, “we need to talk about us.”

“Us?” Jessica asks, her mouth gummed up with peanut butter.

“Yes,” I say. “We're not going to get all the way into it at this point in the evening, but the basic topic of discussion will be this: I don't think we should go on as we have been.”

Jessica studies me with a furrowed brow. “Do you want to break up?” she asks, sounding like she is more curious than offended.

“I'm not saying that.”

“Do you want me to leave my husband?” The words come out of her mouth with surprising ease.

“I'm not saying that either,” I say, and then I add, “But it should be one or the other. That's what we should figure out together.”

Jessica considers this for a moment, swallowing down the last remnants of sandwich from her mouth before asking, “Can we make a game of it?”

“A game?”

“Let's each write what we want to do on a piece of paper. If they match, we'll just go from there, and we won't have to say another word about it.” She is sitting straight up, her eyes alive. “We'll do it tomorrow morning, over our complimentary continental breakfast. You slide your paper across the table, I'll slide mine. Let's have whatever this is between us come down to one moment. Good?”

“Good,” I say. “No matter what happens, let's not spend hours and hours talking about our relationship and the future and what's going to become of us.”

“Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.”

*   *   *

After pulling out from Mike's Lube, I notice the headlights of a car behind us, hanging close on an otherwise empty road. It follows us through a turn.

After the car follows us through a second turn, I point it out to Jessica.

“The driver is probably headed toward the Interstate, just like we are,” she says, though she swivels and looks. “I imagine the road out of town is a popular one.”

But I take another turn, and the trailing car does the same.

“See,” I say to Jessica. “He's staying right behind us.”

She yawns.

“Well, Magnum P.I., I guess you better try to lose him.”

I turn left, deviating off our path toward the Interstate, and the car behind us follows. Then I go right on the first street I come to, planning to take another right to reconnect with our original route. But the road curls left and carries us away from civilization, as it narrows and heads into the woods.

I don't know where I am going, and the car is still behind me.

We disappear into the tall trees, and I have no place to turn around. Now the headlights aren't just following; they are closing in. Meanwhile, the road is one curve after another.

“Jeez, he's really on your tail,” Jessica says, sitting up.

“Thanks for the update,” I say.

The trailing car now veers across the double-yellow lines and speeds up so it is alongside me. He noses ahead of my Audi and swerves hard right, cutting me off. As he does this, I catch a glimpse of the driver: it is a man, he is bald, his mouth wide open in delight.

I brake hard and swerve. So does he.

My Audi screeches sideways. Jessica screams, and I brace for impact as we go off the road.

Instead, we skid into a leafy clearing just off the road and brush up against some low bushes, cushioning us from the trees beyond. The other driver comes to a stop alongside us, blocking our access to the road.

“Don't move,” I say to Jessica. She reaches for the door handle anyway. “Stay inside!” I shout as I jump from the car.

The other driver has emerged as well. Our cars' headlights illuminate our arena.

Before I see the man's face, I notice the glints of metal. He holds a meat cleaver in his right hand and an ax in his left. Then I see the narrow eyes, the thick neck, the broad shoulders bared in his tank-top shirt.

Wee Willie Reckherd.

I also see that he is not wearing any pants. Just boxer shorts and running shoes. As if he was woken from sleep and grabbed what he could and ran out the door.

He looks menacing and unbalanced. I would bet that he was the weird-looking “homeless” man who approached Alice at Stark's. She would have recognized the guy who offered her five dollars for information on Samuel if she had just looked up at their wall of fame.

Willie's breath is a controlled pant; I can see the tension in his muscled forearms. From the car Jessica screams “I'm calling the police,” but he shows no sign of caring. He crouches as he moves in, taking small but steady steps, keeping himself low.

“You or me,” Willie murmurs in a high and soft voice. “You or me.”

Then he lunges forward and swings the ax. I dodge to my right, and his other arm comes forward with the meat cleaver. I grab his arm in mid-blow and quickly shove him hard to the side. I can feel from the firmness of Willie's shoulders that his body is in better shape than his mind. He stumbles back but remains on his feet. I dart to the side to create space between us.

Willie's display of balance is unnerving. More than two decades removed from the game, he still has his reflexes and athletic instincts. And two bladed weapons firmly in his grip.

Then I see some sort of book fly through the air and hit Willie harmlessly in the shoulder. He turns toward my car. “Leave us alone, you crazy asshole,” Jessica shouts.

The book, I see, is my Audi owner's manual, apparently the best weapon Jessica could find inside my car.

“Pop the trunk!” I call to Jessica. “Pop the trunk!”

The trunk door rises as Willie makes a hard run at me. I dodge to the right again—I remind myself to go left the next time, in case he is scouting my tendencies. After again side-stepping to open up some distance between us, I run for the trunk and grab the shovel I have stowed in there with my bag of practice balls.

Now I have a weapon, too. I raise the shovel, gripping hard on its handle with both hands, my heart pounding, every muscle awake. Willie and I face each other, and for a moment he stops in his crouch and assesses how this metal shovel might change the dynamics of our combat.

I calculate, too. And I realize that by making it harder for Willie to attack me up close, I've invited the former quarterback to drop back and throw.

A second later Willie rears back his left hand and hurls the ax at me. It spins through the air and I jump to the left. The axe hits my car, clanking hard against it before it drops to the ground.

Willie charges me directly, the meat cleaver raised. I swing the shovel and hit him flush in the hand, knocking the cleaver to the ground.

He is without weapons. Now Jessica jumps out of the car. She circles around and presents herself legs wide, skinny arms up. She must have picked up this pose from a kickboxing class at the gym.

I move around, trying to place myself in between them, but before I can she attacks Willie with a roundhouse kick. He blocks it with a forearm, then swiftly grabs her by the neck and slams her face against the side window of his car, before she can even scream. Jessica drops limply to the ground.

I cannot check to see how hurt she is, because I have to keep my eyes on the madman, but I do not hear any sound or movement coming from where she lies.

I swing my shovel again at the empty-handed Willie. My shot is angry and wild, and glances off his shoulder. He drives into my body, pushing me back against the hood of my car.

Then he punches me in the face. Which startles me, because despite working in a world of hard hits, I have never been punched in the face in my entire life.

And then Willie grabs my head and plunges his teeth into my neck. He is gnashing around, searching for my carotid artery.

I drop the shovel and stick my thumbs in Willie's eyes—not enough to gouge them out, just enough to force Willie to loosen his grip. He pulls back, and then I grab him by the shoulders and push him, driving hard with my legs, and this time he tumbles to the ground.

As Willie falls, I sneak a glance at Jessica and see that she is not moving.

I look at Willie and see a new problem. I accidentally shoved Willie toward where his ax was resting on the ground.

He picks it up. I back off, and he takes a couple of steps and throws wildly, with a near-sidearm motion. The ax sails high and wide. I hear it crash into the thicket of the woods.

Now Willie and I both scan the ground, trying to locate his remaining weapon, the meat cleaver. I see its blade catching the gleam of the headlights. Willie's eyes are on it, too. The cleaver is equidistant between us—about five yards in front of me and five yards to his left.

I visualize my next move as clearly as if a coach has drawn it out for me on a chalkboard with Xs and Os.

Willie lurches for the cleaver.

As he does, I let my muscle memory take over:

Step. Step. Step.

Kick.

I catch Willie just as he is bending down, and I punt him right in the jaw.

And I feel a pain more violent than I have never known. Lightning rockets up my leg and shoots straight through the top of my head. I feel like I have been split apart.

I stumble backward, helpless. I have kicked something I shouldn't have kicked—an object that is hard and fixed, rather than buoyant and untethered. Reeling, I make the merest attempt to put my right leg underneath me, only to feel it scream out. The leg is broken, ruined. And so am I.

I fall to the ground and howl in agony.

I am mere feet away from a man who is trying to kill me and who, as soon as he collects himself, will have a meat cleaver at his disposal and an immobilized prey before him. I am done. As a punter, as a living being on this Earth. I have been taken down by, of all people, Wee Willie Reckherd. Another wannabe quarterback who couldn't get his way.

I let my head fall to the ground and close my eyes. So this is where I have been leading myself all along. I exhale a cold breath and think of my dad, dying on his own poorly chosen road through the woods. Here I am, one last time, acting just like him.

 

CHAPTER 30

T
ANNER STANDS OVER
me, his blue eyes relaxed. He likes to present himself as a man who knows it all, but at this moment he allows some surprise.

“There's no way around it, Nick,” he says. “You saved our season. You're our MVP.”

“Thanks, coach,” I say. He has been here for a little more than ten minutes, but I am still adjusting to the weirdness of having Tanner standing in my living room, his hand resting on my armchair as I recline on the sofa. Not even the side effects of the Vicodin were this disorienting.

Tanner arrived alone at my door at precisely 10:00
A.M.
, per the appointment arranged by his secretary, and I know that he is slated to leave at 10:15. I glance at my phone, resting on my coffee table, and see it is now 10:14.

“I've got to get going,” Tanner says. “Listen to the doctors, Nick, do your work, and you'll be back before you know it.”

One minute left. Not an ideal amount of time, but I need to bring this up.

“Before you leave, coach,” I say. “I have one question for you.”

“Sure,” he says, though he keeps his body half turned toward the door.

“It's about Selia Sault,” I say.

Tanner's jaw tightens.

“What about her?” Tanner says, his voice quieter than usual.

“You didn't get her pregnant, did you?”

He looks down, head hanging. “I did not get her pregnant,” he mutters. Then he turns and meets my gaze. “She told me she could handle it, but she couldn't. It was a mistake.”

“She's nineteen,” I say. “How could you think she has any idea what she can handle?”

Tanner glares. “It was a mistake,” he repeats, biting off each word. “I will learn from it, and she will, too. I believe that. This is what life is, making mistakes and learning from them.”

He glances at his phone.

“Good-bye, Nick. Get well soon.” He turns his back to me and walks out, right on schedule.

I walk nowhere these days. I fractured my right fibula and sprained my right medial collateral ligament as a result of my kick to the head of Willie Reckherd. Jessica's nose was broken, though not too severely, and the bruising heals more every time I see her. Meanwhile, the doctors project that I will be dancing the tango—or at least, I will be physically capable of dancing the tango—by mid-September, a couple of weeks after the season begins. In the meantime, Woodward Tolley will be taking my place as the Sentinels' punter. I try not to go crazy at the thought of him running onto the field for our opening game while I sit and watch.